On November the 9th Artem Savenko, the student of Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University participated in the "K2 Promotions" professional boxing tournament in Kiev and thus became the third professional boxer in our Oblast.

Artem Savenko has won the battle!

Congratulations to you, Artem!

As a reminder, Artem Savenko represented Ukraine in the weight category up to 63.5 kg at the World Cup Martial Arts held in Yalta in October and won first place. At that time the gold champion was congratulated by Natalia Pobirchenko, University Rector, his classmates, department heads. His sport career, training for the World Kickboxing Championships which will take place on November 20 in the Turkish city of Antalya evoked much public interest. In particular, during the warm and heart-felt conversation over a cup of tea the Rector asked Artem about some episodes of his sporting life unknown before, she was interested to find out where he was born and grew up.

Artem was impressed with such a friendly, laid-back, humanly simple and warm attitude of the Rector. He said he had never been treated like that before. I am very grateful to Natalia Semenivna. I felt like at home by her side, as if talking to a person that I have known for a long time and as if she has known me for ages. I was greatly impressed to see that the person of such a high rank could be frank and simple.

Moved by so much attention to him, Artem was sincere and honest in his turn. He told her about his family. The Savenkos have always been fond of sports. A healthy lifestyle and exercise has been the part and parcel in their family. The family believes that it is prestigious to be healthy! The gold won by Artem is the result of years of work and persistent training. And most importantly, his success results from his love for the sport and admirable perseverance.

Olena Petrivna, the mother of Artem who was fond of artistic gymnastics in her youth inspired Artem to go on for sports too. At first Artem tried swimming. But what lured him was not really swimming - it was the boxing club located in the neighborhood. Yuriy Mikhailovich, Artem's father, a military man, was against it. But the diplomatic mom helped her son so after some family discussions the young man was still allowed to attend the boxing club. Although Artem became a silver medalist of Ukraine at school twice, at 15 and 16 years of age, the head of the family still did not approve of his son's choosing to study in high school sports because he was sure that sports was rather a temporary hobby than a real profession. Therefore Artem studied to be a ... firefighter, he graduated from Cherkasy Fire Academy named after heroes of Chernobyl. Meanwhile, Artem received more and more victories in the Kickboxing competition: he won the championship of Ukraine, the World Cup in Yalta and the bronze medal at the World Cup in Rimini (Italy).

Now even the father realizes that boxing is the true path in life for the eldest son. By the way, Sergiy, the younger son followed the example of Artem and also took up boxing since childhood. At the age of seventeen he had already won the championship of Ukraine in kickboxing in the weight category up to 60 kilograms.

Currently Artem is studying at the Sociology and Psychology Department at Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University. On graduation he will become a coach. He regrets not having chosen the University before because he could have learned a lot by this time. But given his young age (he turned 22 on the 1st of November) everything is still ahead of him.

Artem also has a hobby. A very special one because not all modern women love to do it. What do you think it is? Our champion loves cooking. He can cook very well and has his own recipes of favorite foods. He can definitely teach everyone to cook soup, bake cakes and pies. Home cooking is his personal business that has chosen voluntarily. (He considers it a fair distribution of family responsibilities because his wife is busy with so many household chores). Recently, Artem Savenko attended the culinary program at "Ross" Cherkasy Regional Television. He is waiting for the next competition which is the culinary show.

- Probably I will be making dumplings - says Artem. - I am very skillful at it.

- How did you come to love this hobby not typical for a guy?

- I do not know, he says. - Perhaps it is just like me. As far as I can remember, I have always loved to cook food.

- What other hobbies you have? What were you interested in when you were a child?

- At school I was doing well. I liked a lot of disciplines but none was my favorite. I was fond of psychology, reading detective stories. But since the age of twelve I have been training for two hours ever day I have been pressed for time.

Despite the busy time the friendly Savenkos find the time for everything. They notice the diversity of life and the richness of color and interesting events. With an excitement in his voice Artem tells everyone of family the celebrations, especially that holiday when his father played accordion.

On November the 9th Artem Savenko debuted in professional boxing and thus he became the third professional boxer in the region. Even before the fight the experts have said that Artem is a very promising athlete. He was fighting with Oleksiy Kozlov , the Kharkib boxer with the score of 0-2. It was a 4 round fight of lightweight champions (up to 63,5 kg). In his first fight on the professional ring Artem won. His fight was not broadcasted by any channel and the only way to see it is the Internet, live online Movies megogo.net., which provides free online broadcast of a major boxing pm "K2 Promotions".

Artem Savenko was participating in the professional boxing competition with the world famous boxers. Cherkassy boxer Mishiko Beselia, his friend was fighting with Alexander Usyk and Vyacheslav Uzelkov. Apart from Mishiko Artem has another close friend - David Ahahanov, master of sports of Ukraine of international class kickboxing included in the "top ten athletes "of" Ukraine for non-Olympic sports in 2011." Artem Savenko values their friendship . In general, among the best of human virtues the young man cherishes honesty and sincerity in the first place. And he believes that the worst thing that can be in a relationship is a betrayal of friends.

Artem Savenko could not help remembering the people who helped him achieve a high skill. The first person to remember was Yuriy Zubov, the Honored coach of Ukraine. Among the graduates of this talented mentor there are many distinguished masters of sports of Ukraine, kickboxing champions. Artem is also grateful to him.

Friendly and opened, our gold champion doesn't seem to realize that he is on the same height with the already recognized personalities that contribute to the history of sports of Ukraine. Let you never get affected with celebrity disease, Artem, whatever the heights you achieve in life!

Oleksandra Tkach